Harlow hosts first David Cameron ‘Direct’ event
Harlow Conservatives were chosen to host the first of a countrywide series of events in which David Cameron meets local people in old-style public question and answer sessions.
The event, on Tuesday 2nd June, was conditional upon the audience being open to everyone and anyone from the Harlow community, on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis. The first problem for us was to find a large enough location. Any Council property, such as the Latton Bush Centre or Civic Centre, was out of the question due to the event falling within the ‘purdah’ period prior to the Harlow Common by-election.
So, the Arts and Recreation Centre, known as ‘The ARC’, actually what used to be St John’s Church in Old Harlow, which can seat up to 200 people, was chosen. The event was advertised in local papers, the only condition, imposed by David’s security staff, was that all applicants register their names and addresses before the event and produce photo-identity at the door. The number of people registering was about 4 or 5 times the 200 places available.
On the night everything went smoothly and the hall was packed. BBC TV and Cameron Direct TV crews were there early to set up and David arrived early for the 7.00 pm start. Local Conservative member Tony Hall was asked to ‘warm up’ the audience with a light-hearted introduction and duly obliged, prompting polite laughter with some political gags, but got the biggest laugh of the evening when told the audience “It is very brave of David to expose himself to you,” but quickly added a correction, “To expose himself to your questions.”
This broke the ice for David to appear to huge applause and get the event started by explaining that he wanted questions from anyone on any subject at all, because he felt that politics and politicians had become far too remote from ordinary people and the age of TV ‘sound-bites’ had taken over from grass-roots contact.
He took about 10 questions over the next 50 minutes, ranging from the EU Referendum, to pensions, fuel prices, law & order and university fees. Only three questions came from the 20 or so Conservative Party members present, and David was both articulate and convincing on every question, not ducking any issue and often giving answers that were not what the questioner wanted to hear.
For instance, he told one questioner that, while there would be a place for Grammar Schools under a Conservative Government, where local people wanted them, there would be no return to selective entry or any form of 11+. He told another that he felt University Tuition Fees were the right thing to do, and he told a pensioner that, while he backed restoring the link between the State Pension and earnings, it would be unaffordable for any government to make up ground lost in the period since they were linked to retail prices in the 1980s.
He finished to loud and long applause and all present agreed the event had gone exceedingly well. Many commented how impressive David had been, several of those being people who confessed to being Labour or Liberal Democrat voters.
The only downbeat comments came later from BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, who arrived late and missed most of the event, but picked a handful of Conservative Party Members to interview in front of BBC cameras in order to bolster his stated, later retracted, opinion that both audience and questions had been handpicked from Conservatives.
